İznik

İznik is a municipality and district of Bursa Province, Turkey. Its area is 753 km2, and its population is 44,236 (2022). The town is at the site of the ancient Greek city of Nicaea, from which the modern name derives. The town lies in a fertile basin at the eastern end of Lake İznik, with ranges of hills to the north and south. As the crow flies, the town is only southeast of Istanbul but by road it is around the Gulf of İzmit. It is by road from Bursa. İznik has been a district centre of the province of Bursa since 1930 but belonged to the district of Kocaeli between 1923 and 1927. It was a township of Yenişehir (connected to Bilecik before 1926) district between 1927 and 1930. Ancient Nicaea was ringed with walls that still survive to this day despite having been pierced in many places for roads. Inside the walls stands the Ayasofya Mosque where the First Council of Nicaea was held in A.D. 325. İznik derives from the Ancient Greek name of the city, Νίκαια (Latinized as Nicaea), prefixed with εἰς , meaning 'to' or 'into'. The Ottoman Turkish spelling is ازنيق. In 1331, Orhan captured the city from the Byzantines and for a short period the town became the capital of the expanding Ottoman Emirate. The large church of Hagia Sophia in the centre of the town was converted into the Orhan Mosque and a medrese (theological school) and hamam (bathhouse) were built nearby. In 1334 Orhan built another mosque and an imaret (soup kitchen) just outside the Yenisehir gate (Yenişeh Kapısı) on the south side of the town. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta stayed in Iznik at the end of 1331 soon after the capture of the town by Orhan. According to Ibn Battuta, the town was in ruins and only inhabited by a small number of people in the service of the sultan. Within the city walls were gardens and cultivated plots with each house surrounded by an orchard. The town produced fruit, walnuts, chestnuts and large sweet grapes. A census in 1520 recorded 379 Muslim and 23 Christian households while another one taken a century later in 1624 recorded 351 Muslim and 10 Christian households.